Abstract

In the context of an increasing awareness of improving the standards of English inMalaysia, this study explores Year 1 literacy practices in English and offersimportant insights into the three major innovations introduced in 2002: theEnglish Hour, Big Books and CD-ROMs. The findings are examined in the contextof the Ministry's desire to promote active engagement and high quality interaction.Two studies were conducted using a naturalistic approach. In 2003,50questionnaires were distributed to primary school teachers: 5 classes and 9teachers in 2 primary and 3 pre-schools were observed teaching English, BahasaMalaysia and Arabic/Jawi. These teachers were also interviewed. In 2004,2trainers and 10 teachers were interviewed, 48 lessons of English, Mathematics andScience in English by the 10 teachers were observed, but the study focuses on theliteracy practices in 26 lessons by 4 English teachers in four schools. Interviewsand role plays with 28 children from these four classes in 7 groups of 4 inform theaccounts and discussion of reading and writing events and practices.The 2004 study suggests that the Ministry of Education's directives to Englishclasses to integrate the use of the English Hour, Big Books and CD-ROMs haveonly been partially implemented in the classroom. The Ministry's hopes to providemore active engagement and to increase students' interests and motivation throughthe Big Books and the CD-ROMs were achieved, but the expectations of highquality interaction were not realised. Methods need to be developed toaccommodate teachers' beliefs about the value of drilling, repetition and choralreading with the Ministry's desire to extend these interaction patterns andpractices.The present study contributes to existing research on the implementation of theEnglish Hour, Big Books and CD-ROMs in Year 1 English classrooms, specificallyfrom the perspective of Year 1 English classes in non-English speaking contexts. Italso provides greater understanding of issues to be addressed in future teachereducation developments.